King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India: Kautilya's Arthasastra

by Oxford University Press

Overview

King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India presents an English translation of Kautilya's Arthasastra (AS.) along with detailed endnotes. When it was discovered around 1905, the AS. was described as perhaps the most precious work in the whole range of Sanskrit literature, an assessment that still rings true. Patrick Olivelle's new translation of this significant text, the first in close to half a century, takes into account a number of important advances in our knowledge of the texts, inscriptions, and archeological and art historical remains from the period in Indian history to which the AS. belongs.

The AS. is what we would today call a scientific treatise. It codifies a body of knowledge handed down in expert traditions and is specifically interested in two things: first, how a king can expand his territory, keep enemies at bay, enhance his external power, and amass riches; second, how a king can best organize his state bureaucracy to consolidate his internal power, to suppress internal enemies, to expand the economy, to enhance his treasury through taxes, duties, and entrepreneurial activities, to keep law and order, and to settle disputes among his subjects. The AS. stands alone: there is nothing like it before and there is nothing like it after.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190644123
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	784
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Patrick Olivelle is Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations
Note to the Translation
Outline of the Arthasastra
Introduction
Translation

Book 1: On the Subject of Training
Book 2: On the Activities of Superintendents
Book 3: On Justices
Book 4: Eradication of Thorns
Book 5: On Secret Conduct
Book 6: Basis of the Circle
Book 7: On the Sixfold Strategy
Book 8: On the Subject of Calamities
Book 9: Activity of a King Preparing to March into Battle
Book 10: On War
Book 11: Conduct toward Confederacies
Book 12: On the Weaker King
Book 13: Means of Capturing a Fort
Book 14: On Esoteric Practices
Book 15: Organization of A Scientific Treatise

Notes
Appendix 1: Fauna and Flora
Appendix 2: Weights and Measures
Appendix 3: Geographical Names
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Although citizens of democratic India continue to mull over and quarrel about old texts like these, it could be argued that what keeps such works vital and relevant is not so much what's in them as the fact that they exist at all, that they function as reminders of the deep foundations on which the edifice of Indian modernity rests with a degree of confidence and stability. Whatever we may make of such texts, depending on our ideological needs, our political vantages, and our imaginative capacities, we must remain grateful to scholars like Olivelle, whose immense labor and lucid analysis give us the building blocks with which to make or break, arrange or rearrange our past, our present, and perhaps, with time enough, our future as well."—Public Books

"Arthasastra is a very important text in the understanding of ancient Hindu thinking, and Olivelle's translation will help researchers to make analyses with precision and without falling into anachronisms." —Strategic Analysis

"For years unreadable and inaccurate translations have discouraged general readers and Sanskrit-less scholars of India from reading the Arthasastra, though this work is central to anyone's understanding of Indian history, law, politics, economics, society, religion, and much more. At last we have a translation of extraordinary erudition and clarity that makes this fascinating and crucially important text truly accessible. The prose is transparent, clean, devoid of jargon or highly technical language; the meticulously detailed notes clarify the more abstruse points. All of Patrick Olivelle's translations are first-rate, but this is his great masterpiece."—Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago Divinity School

"Patrick Olivelle's fluent and illuminatingly annotated translation will be a revelation to all those interested in ancient India and in the organization of ancient states more generally. By offering a powerful counter to the popular notion of an ancient India focused only on transcendent religious speculation, it significantly complicates and deepens our picture of that place and time."—Stephanie W. Jamison, Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures and of Indo-European Studies, the University of California, Los Angeles

"Patrick Olivelle crowns a distinguished career by translating one of the most difficult, and by many measures the most valuable, of Sanskrit texts, Kautilya's Arthasastra. A lifetime of scholarly translations from Sanskrit has prepared him to scale these daunting heights, and the result is magnificent. The work is informed by a strongly-argued theory about the composition of the Arthasastra, and the translation is richly annotated. All scholars of ancient India will benefit from this splendid new translation."—Thomas R. Trautmann, Professor Emeritus of History and Anthropology, University of Michigan

"Patrick Olivelle, better qualified for the job than any other Indologist by decades of experience in translating ancient and medieval Indian texts, as well as by his long and highly productive engagement with Indian legal literature, has presented a new translation of the famous and in many regards unique Arthasastra of Kautilya, the only extant witness of the once much larger genre of texts dealing with the science of law and statecraft. By a rare combination of philological acumen, insightful recognition of textual and exegetical problems, an enviably vast erudition, and a developed feel for the language, Olivelle has succeeded in preparing a richly annotated translation that is both readable and utterly reliable. It not only outdoes all its predecessors but will also stand unchallenged the test of time."—Albrecht Wezler, Emeritus Professor of Sanskrit, University of Hamburg, Germany

"The Arthasastra is a work of exceptional importance for understanding the history of classical India. Olivelle's careful, painstaking, and transparent translation of Kautilya's great treatise is an exceptional work as well, and an outstanding contribution to the field of Indian studies." —H-Net Reviews

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